


First Impressions

by Neferit



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Community: st_xi_kink, Community: st_xi_kink_meme, F/M, First Impressions, First Kiss, Genderbending, Humour, Kink Meme, Prompt Fill, Romance, Slow Burn, it's nanowrimo i should be writing right now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:43:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5240216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neferit/pseuds/Neferit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the first impressions perspective, Leonard McCoy and Jamie Kirk were the most predictable people one could have the (mis)fortune to meet. So, the question stood, how the hell did these two actually managed to land each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a [prompt](http://st-xi-kink.livejournal.com/8893.html?thread=28474557#t28474557) over at st_xi_kink meme:
> 
> _Jocelyn and her family, McCoy family, McCoy SF medical coworkers (who should be about McCoy age or older what with getting a M.D. and all, except maybe for some nursing staff) and old coworkers are incredulous that he managed to land Jim. After all Leonard his notorious for his bad bedside manners, being relationship illiterate (just ask Jocelyn to know all that he didn't understand or do correctly) and being a ranting machine. While Jim is downright charming, playful and good in bed (in top and bottom positions), an optimist and contrary to the rumors keep his hands/eyes to himself and his partner while in a relationship. Please give us the incredulous outsiders pov and then the answers to their "questions" (however you want anon but big <3 if you give us Bones and Jim pov too)_
> 
>  
> 
> Well, not exactly up the prompt, but the inspiration was there xD

 

From the first impressions perspective, Leonard McCoy and Jamie Kirk were the most predictable people one could have the (mis)fortune to meet.

Jamie Kirk would flirt with everything that moved, and also had been caught in the act of making a move at few stationary species, completely ignorant of the fact of how improper such behaviour could get at times. She rarely cared about anything and anyone, and if she wanted to prove her point at something, she would do everything to do that (as Spock most of all could attest, with his Kobayashi Maru simulation).

Leonard McCoy wouldn’t recognize good bedside manner, if it came up and kicked him in the balls, his co-workers knew for sure. It didn’t really matter that number of their patients was there mostly because they weren’t following safety protocols, or thought they knew better than their instructors or tutors. You just were nice and pleasant to everyone, and help them. His knowledge of good relationship would probably fit into a thimble, with plenty of space to spare, too, as Jocelyn was quick to point out for everyone willing to listen.

So, the question stood, how the hell did these two actually managed to land each other?

**-o.O.o-**

_So, how did the two of you actually meet?_

“I may throw up on you” might not have been the most perfect thing to say to a rather battered looking young woman (the only one dressed like a civilian and not a cadet or instructor) in the next seat, but Leonard couldn’t care less about perfection in moments like these. He was scared out of his wits, made an idiot in front of a full shuttle of younger people, and this woman, who looked at him with clear incredulity in her whole stance, was just one of them.

Yet there was something different about her, for instead of demanding to be seated away from the panicking lunatic, her look changed to the one of keen interest.

“I hear those things are pretty safe,” she said, her voice sounding more like a question than a statement, and he raved at her some more. At the end of his tirade, the cadets were looking at him with something akin to disgust at the colourful metaphors he used to describe Andorian shingles, but not this woman.

She was actually smiling at him.

“If that is the case… you do realize that Starfleet sort of operates in the space? Using these flying death traps?”

“Don’t I know everything about that,” he grumbled, reaching for the small flask of booze he had in the inner pocket of his jacket. “But ex-wife got the whole planet in the divorce, so it’s not like I can be extra picky.”

He offered the flask to her, suddenly feeling like a gentleman, if a cheap one. “Leonard McCoy,” he introduced himself, right before the shuttle took off and his stomach made a flip flop in his body cavity.

Her fingers closed around his for a second, before she took the flask from him. “Jamie Kirk,” she replied, and smiled at him one more time before taking a small sip.

She spent the whole time they flew to San Francisco by forcing him to talk to her. Where he was from (Georgia, born and bred), when did he decide to enlist (when out of options and with his self-confidence in taters), his favourite music (classical, with focus on impressionism, and also the more modern works of classical music) and what was his most favourite colour of them all?

Looking into her eyes, he blurted: “Blue.”

Blue. The colour of his would-be professional track uniform, the colour of the sky at a warm and sunny day at Georgia, the colour of those eyes that looked at him intently and shone brightly with amusement.

**-o.O.o-**

_How did the two of you get together?_

The thing was, where Jamie Kirk appeared, Leonard McCoy would soon turn up at as well.

The two of them caught together like house on fire ever since they landed next to each other during the shuttle ride, and seemingly, both were happier because of that. Jamie had someone who would grumble at her all the time, bringing her down to earth whenever her crazy and hare-brained schemes were becoming a bit too much, and Leonard had someone to make him smile, even if he would deny ever smiling vehemently.

She would call him _Bones_ , instead of his boring ass name that sounded too old for someone like him, and he would roll his eyes at her, grumbling that the name was given to him by his parents, after some ancestor and dammit, she better call him by it.

He would call her _sugar_ , when out of public, and when he called her that for the first time, it completely knocked the air out of her lungs.

Sugar, with that Southern drawl, sounded so much like endearment instead of some silly nickname as the Bones was, but for a long time Bones would never even suggest that it was meant as such, so Jamie didn’t push.

Then came the final attempt Leonard was allowed to take for his flight exam, and he was deathly afraid of fucking it all up, his ass being kicked out of the Academy and back to the Earth his wife got in the divorce and where he had absolutely nothing left. And that was when Jamie came by, standing on her tiptoes as she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him down.

“You’re going to make it, Bones,” she whispered into his ear. “Such a brilliant man as you would never fuck it up. I know you, and I believe in you. Do not ever doubt that.”

So he didn’t doubt himself, or her.

Instead, he spent the whole flight by focusing on the number of ways she could smile.

There was this radiant smile that could mask everything, never allowing anyone see past its brightness, false as it was.

Then there was that smile, smaller, yet no less radiant, but so, _so_ much more sincere it made his heart skip a beat, ever since he saw it for the very first time, and it was aimed at him. Him, of all the people she could smile that way at.

Of course, there was also that smile she would give to small children; sweet and full of longing at watching their antics.

And last but not least there was this particular smile, full of pride at something he did, and it was also the smile he covered with one of his own, closing the distance between them in several big steps, grabbing her into his arms and kissing her breath away from her.

Not only didn’t she slap him for grabbing her like that. No. Instead, she gave him another of her smiles; slow and adoring, the one that made her eyes shine, and his heart sing.

**-o.O.o-**

_How do you even manage to stick with each other?_

Moving from being together to the _actual being together_ , was a surprisingly easy thing to do.

Jamie and Bones already spent loads of time in each other’s presence, so it wasn’t as if everything got stood on its head, when they actually became a couple. Only this time, they spent most of this time in Bones’ single dorm, cuddling on the couch and watching some movie, or just enjoying each other’s presence while they studied (no double entendre about that).

There were times it was difficult, of course. The anniversaries, so many of them, were particularly bad.

Anniversary of Leonard’s father’s death.

Anniversary of the Kelvin Incident, with all its speeches and memorials, face of George Kirk flashing all over the news, with basically everyone asking Jamie this or that about her father and herself slowly losing her patience.

Anniversary of his divorce, and the bitter end of the whole court.

It always had been the last one that was the most difficult to deal with, with Bones being still raw about the short end of the stick he got out of it, and Jamie always fought hard to not be viewed as second-hand Jocelyn.

First, she wouldn’t cheat on Bones, especially not in the bed they had (not yet) shared.

She would talk to him, she liked to think, and never allowed him to crawl back in his shell, but instead, she would kick him out and scolded him for hours at end. She understood the open wound that had been his father’s death, and partially understood how much of a failure he felt over his divorce and the way he lost everything, most of all the little girl that was his daughter, but this; them, had been real as well, his chance at new life.

He would be there for her, when she sat on the ground, leaning on the wall behind her, staring at nothing, as her thoughts rolled around the way how everyone seemed to revere the man that was her father, and whom her mother never stopped missing. Never stopped missing, going as far as leaving her children, leaving her small daughter on Earth, while she chased his spirit among the stars, being as cold and distant as those shiny spots on the skies.

His presence by her side, warm against her, kept her grounded, just as her scolding of him would keep him sane.

**-o.O.o-**

_How do the two of you actually manage to work together and not kill each other when off-duty?_

Knowing how they operated helped them a lot in adjusting that while Jamie is the one who has the deciding word in action; it’s Leonard who has more power when it came to matters of body and health.

Jamie would risk her life for the sake of others, and Leonard would be there to tear her back from he arms of Death that somehow always lurked around, its bony fingers reaching towards her.

It worked most of the time, but once, there was nothing Leonard could do, and all he could see was the already cooling body of the woman he loved, laying on the table before him, as they unzipped the body bag.

The shock of that rendered him breathless; a cold hand reaching through his chest towards the woman before him. Blindly, he staggered to his work desk, hiding his face in his palms, when a soft purring caught his attention.

Tribble, previously very much dead, was alive, and inching closer to him, intent on comforting the distraught human.

With speed he never knew he possessed, he jumped towards the nearest comm, shouting for anyone to get him a cryotube, and somebody better get hold of Spock, because he needed his hands on the Augment, who caused this all.

The next two weeks were hell, where he fought with absolutely everything at his disposal to keep her from the cold arms that already snatched her once, nearly snatched her thousand times before. Those eyes, so broken right after the attack at the meeting of Captains and First Officers, those lips, so cold and unyielding during their flight to Qonos, that voice, so desperate in her plea for her crew’s safety, those hands, gentle, yet firm…

He missed it all, while she was hooked on machines that kept her alive, before her own body could take over.

But when she opened her eyes for the first time, taking in a huge gulp of air and looked around in nearly a panic, he knew it was all worth it.

The arguments they had before her… short passing out in the warp core… were not forgotten, that was sure, and they promised to each other they would never stop talking.

She only needed to get stronger, and he would be there the whole way.

**-o.O.o-**

_How did Joanna take that her father is dating?_

Little Joanna wasn’t quite as little as Jamie believed, until she took the call for Bones, while he was still at work, and Joanna was scheduled to call.

“Who are you?” the girl on the other side of the screen blurted, her lips creating a pout.

Jamie felt her smile slip a bit. “Jamie Tabitha Kirk,” she introduced herself. “I’m a friend of your father. He will arrive in a few minutes, since he got delayed at work.”

“And what are you doing at his place while he’s at work?”

Ouch. Jamie barely held back a wince at the accusatory tone. She understood where the girl was coming from – she would feel the same towards every man her mother seemed to be dating, even if the woman rarely felt anything deeper towards them. They would just serve as someone to look over the kids, but that was about it.

Luckily, that was about when Bones arrived, and took the conversation from there, thea accussing stare long forgotten, as the girl was all bright smiles and giggles.

It took quite a long time to get Joanna used to the fact that yes, Jamie is his friend, later his girlfriend, and yes, he loves her.

There came the root of all the scowls aimed at Jamie. “But don’t you love mama, too?”

For a long moment, if someone dropped a pin on the ground, it would probably break the walls with the resonating sound, before Bones sighed deeply.

“Baby girl,” he spoke, his voice as gentle as it got only when talking to Joanna or in private with Jamie. “Once, I loved your mama more than anything. But not anymore, just like your mama doesn’t love me anymore either.”

“I’m not trying to steal your father from you,” Jamie spoke, before she could think of stopping herself. “I know you love him. But I hoped that you would allow me to love him as well.”

Joanna cried. Jamie cried. Bones looked close to tears as well, but in the end he was the only one who remained relatively calm, at least for the duration of the call. Then he broke, sobbing in Jamie’s arms.

The road towards acceptance from Joanna had been a thorny one, but in the end, Jamie hoped that the girl will be able to at least tolerate her.

**-o.O.o-**

_When did Leonard propose?_

Jamie and Leonard had been together for about three years, going to four, when Leonard popped the question, where else than during the shoreleave on Risa.

It wasn’t the situation they always showed in romance vids – no candlelight and dinner and wine, no sunsets or starlit walks over beach.

They were lying in the afternoon sun, enjoying the warmth rays on their skin and cold drinks in their hands, when Leonard said:

“I think we should get married.”

And Jamie sipped at her drink and responded: “Sure, let’s do it.”

Of course, a southern gentleman always had a reputation to keep, so later, there would be the candlelit dinner, and a ring in Jamie’s glass of champagne and a walk through beach under the moon, but that little moment, so much just like them, was the real moment when it all happened; a secret of their own, cherished, but never told.

**-o.O.o-**

_How did Jamie and Jocelyn meet?_

It was actually quite hilarious that for all the time Jamie and Leonard spent together, his ex, and his current woman never met until the very day of Jamie’s and Leonard’s wedding.

Since Joanna was more than eager to attend the wedding, her mother and her second husband got dragged into the madness as well, and Leonard felt his palms sweat when he thought of that.

He, for one, hadn’t been invited for Jocelyn’s second wedding, but then again, at the time he wasn’t even allowed to talk to his daughter, so the lack of invitation couldn’t bother him any less. Now, however, was a big day for him and even bigger day for Jamie.

Joanna looked very cute in her dress, and Jocelyn and Clay looked… Leonard searched for a word that would describe their looks without him sounding like a sore loser… dignified. Jocelyn always knew how to look good, and Clay had enough money of his own, not to mention all the property the divorce cost him, so no surprise he looked completely in place among such high officials as there were all around.

After all, wedding of two Starfleet slash Federation heroes wasn’t an affair to miss.

He was too nervous to spend too much time talking with them, anyway, and before he knew it, Admiral Archer was already ushering everyone to the place the whole wedding should happen, and he stood there, waiting for his bride to appear.

And there she was, dressed in white vintage lace dress, her hair up in a bun adorned by white crystals given to her by Andorian diplomat they managed to save from an assassination plot, a magnolia bouquet in her hand, as Elder Selek walked her down the aisle; the Vulcan sober and dignified, yet with air of pride around him.

“I believe the proper thing to say is ‘it will be my honour’,” he said when Jamie asked him, his dark eyes showing emotions Leonard would swear Vulcans unable to experience.

Standing next to his wife-to-be, Leonard found himself focused more on her than on what Archer had been saying, even if a part of him listened to the ceremony.

“In all the galaxy, there is no greater force than true love. Love sustains, nourishes and protects…”

It got to the ‘do you marry her’ part sooner than he could remember from his first wedding, but his eagerly said ‘I do’ made the audience laugh a bit.

When they finally got to the kissing part, Leonard gave her one hell of a movie wedding kiss, and enjoyed the feel of her smile, the same one she gave him when he kissed her for the very first time.

He was worried that Jocelyn might pull something during the banquet that followed the ceremony, but instead, she congratulated them, and actually sounded sincere in her well-wishes.

It wasn’t until later, when he went for something to the bar, that she appeared by his side. “You look happy,” she told him without preamble, and he had to force the snort down. He looked at Jamie instead; she had her back to him, talking animatedly to Caitian ambassador and Clay of all possible people.

“I am,” he spoke softly, smiling a bit at the sight.

“We could never work out, could we?” Jocelyn asked, clearly a rhetoric question, but one Leonard answered none the less. “Probably not,” he conceded, but when he looked at her, he found himself smiling, and meaning the smile. “But we got at least something right, even if we screwed everything else up.”

“To new beginnings,” Jocelyn raised her glass. “And new chances,” Leonard added, clinking his glass against hers.

“Everything alright?” Jamie asked him, when he returned to his place by her side. He kissed her nose. “With you, always.”

So he was a sap. Bite him.

**Author's Note:**

> Also known as "this is what happens when I get stuck at wat I originally wanted to write for NaNoWriMo 2015" D:


End file.
